


before he was gone

by purple_whizzvin



Category: The Politician (TV 2019)
Genre: Other, basically just about river bc I highkey relate to him, suicide mention!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 12:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20948411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_whizzvin/pseuds/purple_whizzvin
Summary: River Barkley, himself, was not an unhappy person.It was..well, to put it in harsher terms, the people around him. Their emotions made him stressed.





	before he was gone

River wasn’t unhappy. 

River Barkley, himself, was not an unhappy person. He had friends and family who loved him. He lived in a big house and he had a lot of money. People admired him. He had a girlfriend and she was pretty and popular, just like him. 

It was..well, to put it in harsher terms, the people around him. Their emotions made him stressed. 

He had been told when he was younger that he was an empath. That he could understand other people’s feelings, they would say, on a deeper level. He could put himself in their shoes. River didn’t really think much of it because that had been his whole life. His whole life up to that point, he had only been concerned about others, and if he said that, how would that make them feel? so it made sense. He was just surprised that it wasn’t the same for everyone else. 

But he couldn’t just turn it off. He couldn’t stop caring. He couldn’t stop having this need to make sure everyone he cared about was okay, and he’d make sure he would do anything in his power to make that happen. 

And it was working. He helped a friend with self-esteem issues and he helped a friend questioning suicide and he helped a friend going through a breakup. But no one knew everything he was dealing with. He’d tell people, but he wouldn’t show it. And it was like they wouldn’t believe it because there wasn’t proof. They dismissed it like he was nothing. 

He turned into a therapist for everyone when really what he needed was a therapist for himself. All of it started to feel like a burden, like he was drowning under everyone’s negative emotions - except for when it came to Payton. 

Payton was never a burden. The opposite, actually. Payton was the only one who didn’t make him feel overwhelmed. Payton made him smile and laugh and Payton let him take a break from everything else. 

But he couldn’t rely on Payton. And he started to realize that if he left the people he was helping, they would be okay on their own now. But he couldn’t just stop helping them. The guilt would consume him. He had to leave them for good. 

He worried about Payton. But he knew he’d been okay. Payton was going to do incredible things, with or without River. 

And someday, he’d see him again. And River knew that, just for Payton, he’d start the cycle over - he’d do anything to make Payton happy, even if it hurt him. Even after he was gone. 


End file.
